Expert Source Guide

Ohio Wesleyan University sources are available to help journalists with insights into a wide range of topics.

If you are a journalist and wish to arrange an interview with an Ohio Wesleyan expert, or if you are a faculty or staff member and wish to be added to this guide, please contact Cole Hatcher at cehatche@owu.edu.

To search this page, press Ctrl+F on desktop/laptop computers or use the “Find in Page” functionality on most smartphones. (The following list is not comprehensive but provides a good snapshot of possible OWU experts and topics.)

Experts

Academic Affairs

  • Karlyn Crowley – higher education; women's leadership development in higher education; liberal arts education and liberal arts colleges; humanities in higher education; diversity, equity, and inclusion work in higher education; women's and gender studies. Crowley is OWU's provost.
  • Brian Rellinger – technology, technology use in higher education, cutting edge technology, learning management systems, ERP systems, networking, staff development, leadership, drones. Rellinger is OWU's associate provost for academic support and chief information officer.

Africana, Gender, & Identity Studies

Biological Sciences

  • Laurel Anderson – global environmental change, climate change, plant ecology, invasive plants, temperate forest ecology, collaborative science. Anderson is OWU's Morris Professor of Natural Sciences.
  • Eric Gangloff – animal physiology, animal performance, effects of climate change on animals, thermal biology. Gangloff is an assistant professor of Biological Sciences.
  • Danielle Hamill – cell biology, cell division, genetics, animal development. Hamill is a professor of Biological Sciences.
  • Shala Hankison – evolution and speciation, animal behavior with a focus on mating behaviors, Columbus Zoo liaison. Hankison is an associate professor of Biological Sciences.
  • Dustin Reichard – ornithology (birds), animal behavior and communication, evolutionary biology, endocrinology. Reichard is an associate professor of Biological Sciences.

Career Connection

  • Mindy Agin – internships, interviewing strategies, NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) workforce competencies, networking, navigating college to career, what students are bringing to the workforce and are seeking from employers. Agin is the assistant director for internships and externships with the OWU Career Connection.
  • Megan Ellis – integration of curricular and co-curricular programs, higher education change management, continuous improvement, career development, entrepreneurship, community and town-gown partnerships. Ellis is the executive director of the OWU Connection.
  • Leigh Mascolino – career counseling, strengths assessment, career confidence, job search. Mascolino is the director of career development with the OWU Career Connection.

Economics & Business

  • Glenn Bryan – marketing, corporate strategy. Bryan is an associate professor of Business Administration.
  • Will Georgic – studying environmental problems likely to worsen with climate change (including flooding and harmful algal blooms), informing more efficient policy decisions. Georgic is an assistant professor of Economics.
  • Robert Gitter – wages, unemployment, migration, Social Security, health care, and income distribution. Gitter is an emeritus professor of Economics.
  • Barbara MacLeod – the Chartered Financial Analyst process, business courses and the liberal arts curriculum, investments, risk management, business of sport, angel investing, supporting entrepreneurs. MacLeod is a professor of Business Administration.
  • Jon Younkman – equity markets and investments. Younkman is an assistant professor of Economics and Business.

Education

  • Sarah Kaka – educator preparation programs in creating effective, long-term educators in all settings; Critical Race Theory; teaching controversial ideas; social studies education. Kaka is an assistant professor of Education.
  • Michele Nobel – educating at-risk and identified youth, peer tutoring, behavior analysis, and educator preparation and accreditation. Nobel is an assistant professor of Education.

English

  • Amy Butcher – essays and creative nonfiction, memoir, travel writing, flash forms. Butcher is the director of Creative Writing.
  • Patricia DeMarco – Middle English literature; medieval law and the regulation of violence; the romance tradition and the poetry of the Ricardian court, including Chaucer and Gower; late medieval literature in England and France. DeMarco is a professor of English.
  • Sarah Graves – popular culture, particularly fantasy and science fiction; world mythology; children's, middle grade, and young adult literature; writing for the web. Graves is a lecturer in English.
  • Zackariah Long – Shakespeare, Renaissance literature and culture, vocation and the humanities, first-year curriculum. Long is a professor of English.

Environment & Sustainability

  • John Krygier – mapmaking, cartography, geographic information systems (GIS), geospatial technology, participatory mapping and GIS, psychogeography, environment and society (20th century publisher’s book series). Krygier is a professor of Environment and Sustainability and director of Environmental Studies.
  • Nathan Rowley – climate change, weather and atmospheric phenomena, glaciology, satellite imagery and UAVs (drones), human impacts on the environment, landscape change. Rowley is an associate professor of Environment and Sustainability.

Fine Arts

  • Kristina Bogdanov – ceramics (stoneware, cone 6 oxidation and reduction firings), photolithography image transfer on clay, drawing illustration. Bogdanov is an associate professor of Fine Arts.
  • Carol Neuman de Vegvar – art history, the interface between secular and sacred art, the preservation and destruction of artistic patrimony, and the role of art in culture and society. Neuman de Vegvar is an emerita professor of Fine Arts.
  • Jeffrey Nilan – photography, bookmaking, and 2D design. Nilan is a professor of Fine Arts.

Health & Human Kinetics

  • Andrew Busch – athletic performance, injury prevention. Busch is an associate professor of Health and Human Kinetics.
  • Christopher Fink – food insecurity and community health, food and culture, public health, health promotion and disease prevention, oral history methods. Fink is an associate professor of Health and Human Kinetics.
  • Jay Martin – introduction to sports management, management for sport/athletic administration, soccer, coaching, youth sports and leadership. Martin is a professor of Health and Human Kinetics.
  • Elizabeth Nix – nutritional biochemistry, systems-thinking for food and nutrition, food processing and health. Nix is an assistant professor of Nutrition.

History

  • Jeremy Baskes – colonial economic history of Mexico and history of Latin America from ancient times to the present. Baskes is a professor of History.
  • Xiaoming Chen – Chinese intellectual history, the history of Asian countries and regions. Chen is a professor of History.
  • Michael Flamm – political culture of the 1960s, crime and disorder in the 1960s, the U.S. and Vietnam. Flamm is a professor of History.

Mathematics & Computer Science

Performing Arts

  • Brian Granger – performance (acting, dancing, singing, stand-up comedy, African American performance); songwriting; creative writing (especially dramatic writing/playwriting); ethnicity in the arts; musical theatre. Granger is an assistant professor of Theatre.
  • Jason Hiester – conducting, vocal music. Hiester is an associate professor of Music.

Perkins Observatory

Philosophy & Religion

  • Erin Flynn – post-Kantian German philosophy, free will and responsibility, the philosophy of sports. Flynn is a professor of Philosophy.
  • R. Blake Michael – Virashaiva/ Lingayata religious tradition of South India, Hinduism, global theology, religion in global perspective, Asian religions. Michael is a professor of Religion.

  • Shari Stone-Mediatore – mass incarceration; critical theories of race and gender; decolonial theory; militarism and philosophies of violence; the politics of knowledge-making; the politics of borders; theorists Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Simone de Beauvoir. Stone-Mediatore is a professor of Philosophy.

Politics & Government

  • Ji Young Choi – The rise of China and its impact on East Asia and the world, U.S.-China relations, South Korean politics and economy, North Korea's nuclear crisis. Choi is an associate professor of Politics and Government.
  • James Franklin – Political repression, political dissent, democratization, protest, Latin American Politics. Franklin is a professor of Politics and Government.
  • Brianna Mack – U.S. elections; American political behavior, political psychology, the political behavior of racial and ethnic minorities, some media phenomena. Mack is an assistant professor of Politics and Government.
  • Franchesca Nestor – The American presidency, Congress, bureaucracy/executive branch policymaking/general public policy, women and politics, food politics and policy. Nestor is an assistant professor of Politics and Government.

Psychology / Neuroscience

  • Kira Bailey – cognition and attention, media effects, brain activity. Bailey is an associate professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.
  • Krystal Cashen – LGBTQ+ families and development of identity, close relationship functioning in adolescence and emerging adulthood. Cashen is an assistant professor of Psychology.
  • Christopher Modica – psychopathology and psychological assessment (diagnosing mental disorders, and causes and treatments of mental disorders); psychotherapy and mental health counseling; eating disorders (binge eating, anorexia, bulimia) and body image; best practices in statistical analysis in social sciences; ethics of psychology (confidentiality, privileged communication, standard of care). Modica is an assistant professor of Psychology.
  • Chelsea Vadnie – neurobiology of anxiety and mood disorders, circadian rhythms, stress, rodent behavior. Vadnie is an assistant professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.

Sociology & Anthropology

  • Paul Dean – first-generation college students, working-class culture, class and race, globalization, educational travel, service learning. Dean is a professor of Sociology and Social Justice.
  • Vanessa Hildebrand – human reproduction in cultural context, global health, families and kinship, social science research methods, theories on post-colonialism and development, Southeast and East Asia, cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, and providing medical care for vulnerable populations (women and infants). Hildebrand is an assistant professor of Sociology-Anthropology.

Student Engagement & Success

  • Brad Pulcini – first-generation college students, first-year students/first-year transition programs, Appalachian college students, college access, student success and retention. Pulcini is the dean of student services in the Division of Student Engagement and Success.

World Languages & Cultures

  • Andrea Colvin – 20th and 21st-century Latin American literature (particularly narrative from the Southern Cone); the representation of military dictatorships of the 1970s in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay through literature and film; the post-dictatorship generation and memorial culture in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Colvin is an associate professor of Spanish.
  • David Counselman – second language learning/acquisition, second language pronunciation learning and improvement, phonetics and phonology (particularly when related to Spanish and English vs. Spanish), accentedness (foreign or otherwise) and the perception of accentedness. Counselman is an associate professor of Spanish.
  • Mary Anne Lewis Cusato – French language; francophone cultural studies, especially francophone North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria); globalization's effects on the culture industry; transferable skills, from classroom to career. Cusato is an associate professor of French.
  • Eva Paris-Huesca – contemporary Spanish Peninsular literature and cultures, Spanish cinema directed by women, Spanish noir, and crime fiction of female authorship. Paris-Huesca is an associate professor of Spanish and director of the Film Studies Program.